play it safe or...?

It’s 9:30 Sunday morning here in the media center at Laguna Seca all the photographers are gone, out on the track, the journalists are typing away and we already have two interviews done. Jim Allen of Dunlop Tires,
and
the Chief Technical Inspector for the AMA, my friend Jim Rashon. Two more this morning, Ducati’s Larry Pegram and Kawasaki’s Jordan Szoke. Hopefully we’ll pick up a couple more this afternoon. This is going to be good day. Hectic, but good.

The championship of two races being run today have already been decided, one is just about a done deal and one is still up in the air. While talking with my friend Jim Rashon of the AMA (we had a really great interview) he brought up an interesting question, Ben Spies, Superbike Champion, will he just cruise along and play it safe or will come out and prove why he’s the three time Champion? Same question goes for Aaron Yates, Superstock Champion. My thought, they are both going out with guns ablazing. There is a third rider that question can apply to and he is not the declared champ, yet, that’s Ben Bostrom in Supersport. He has a pretty strong points lead and all he has to do is finish better than seventeenth.


In our interview with Ben he posed that question to himself “do I cruise along and finish tenth or do I go out and win it? I know we can win it”. Well, Ben is on the pole, so much for cruising, and like he said in our interview “ I love roadracing”. My money says he goes out for the win.

Times a wasting, back to the pits and look for Kevin Schwantz.

Racing families

As this little podcast continues to grow, we work at more races, meet more people and get taken more seriously. As we interview more racers we have a found a couple of very cool families. Honda and Yamaha, and within Yamaha, the Bostrom brothers.


We just got out of our interview with Ben Bostrom. He was still in his leathers having just come from qualifying for the Supersport race. He was hardly sweating!! Anyway, we had a really fun interview. Ben was enthusiastic, laughing and as he put it “in love with roadracing again” Make sure you listen to it at www.themotoworld.com. Also a while back, we had a great chat with his little brother Eric, also on the factory Yamaha team. They both are really stoked to be on the same team .

When I said we have met two great families, I was referring to Honda and Yamaha. We start with PR people, who then get us to the riders and we get a great interview. We watch the mechanics and other team personnel and they are all happy as can be. The riders have all told us that being on those teams feel like family and you know what, it shows. Heather and I always have fun when we get together with either of these teams. We are really looking forward to next season. Daytona here we come

Meet the Prez

I have written and podcasted many times about what is going on with AMA Pro Racing having been bought out by The Daytona Motorsorts Group..the owners of Nascar and other racing organizations throught the country. The riders started off rather nervous that their sport was going to start looking like Nascar, the last thing any self respecting roadracer would want. Then the projected rules and class structure were proposed and everyone was up in arms, teams threatening to back out, tracks saying “no teams, no race”. Since that time things seem to be getting worked out instead of worked up.


Today, Roger Edmondson, CEO of AMA Pro Racing, held a press conference here at Laguna Seca to bring eveyone up to speed on progress being made for the 2009 racing season. The basics of what he said today are that all the current tracks and two new ones are all commited AMA Pro Racing for next season. He declined to talk about rule changes and class structures saying that it was still a very delicate subject . However, Mr. Edmondson did alude to a new class being set up. Called the Sportbike class, it is designed to bring younger riders in the sport on motorcycles with very limited modifications. And lastly, the subject of a control or spec tire is in the works as he said that three manufacturers all sent in proposals. All in all it was an OK event, The Moto media was expecting a lot more. This thing is really dragging out.

And a little race up date, Formula Extreme pole sitter is Josh Hayes with his teammate Jake Zemke next to him. Here’s a neat little tid bit, this season Josh has been wearing the number one plate and Jake was #2, next season it’s the other way around, if they are both still here. Josh has gotten a ride for the last three races in World Supersport and Jake has his feelers out for Euro ride as well.